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Former OhioTreasurer Josh Mandel is among the candidates running in the wide-open Republican race for Senate in Ohio.

The former U.S. Marine is making his third run for the seat. Like several of the candidates in the GOP contest, he is banking on winning the vote of former President Donald Trump's supporters by toutinghimself as the former presidents strongest advocate. He has loudly pronounced on the campaign trail the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

The northeast , Ohio, native, who scored the endorsement of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, takes on a field of candidates that includes businessman Mike Gibbons, ex-Ohio GOP chair Jane Timken, venture capitalist JDVance and others in the Republican primary on May 3.

Mandel has been a fixture in Ohio politics for years, but he hasn't held elected office since 2019. He already has run two unsuccessful campaigns for U.S. Senate, most recently withdrawing from the 2018 race.

Former Rep. Jim Renacci, now a Republican candidate for Ohio governor, ran in Mandel's place. He lost to incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat.

Mandelfirst entered public officein 2003. He was elected to the Lyndhurst City Council before he was called up for deployment in Iraq, where he served two tours.

In 2006, a 29-year-old Mandel ascended tothe Ohio House, where he served until 2010. That is when he was elected state treasurer, a position he would keep until he launched hisfailed 2018 Senate bid.

But hisfirst and most successful runfor thenational seat came in2012, when he won the Republican nomination and lost in the general election to Brown.

Much has been written in the press over the years about Mandels political ambition. He had been state treasurer just over a year before he launched his first senate bid.

He held in his early daysa reputation as a moderate Republicanwho championed bi-partisanship,The New York Times reported. Buthe drifted further right with the emergence of the Tea Party movement and then the election of Trump.

In his time out of office, he served on several corporate boards and joined startups.

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Mandel was born on September 27,1977. He is 44 years old.

Mandel was raised in Beachwood, a majority Jewish community outside Cleveland. His dad, Bruce Mandel, is an attorney and active member of the local Jewish Federation. Mandel graduated in 1996 from Beachwood High School, where he played quarterback on the football team.

Mandels campaign lays out 10 issues, but front and center on the campaigns website are Pro-God, Pro-Gun, and Pro-Trump.

He joins the chorus of GOP midterm contenders parroting the Trump America First agenda, which takes a hardline approach to immigration and international trade policy.

But Mandel, more than other candidates, has made religiona central tenet of his campaign.

He said he does not believe in the separation of church and state and promised to protect the Judeo-Christian bedrock of America. Mandel has said on the campaign trail that no issue is more important than stopping abortion.

Part of his campaign promise echoes Trumps 2016 calls to drain the swamp. Mandel has decried establishment Republicans who he said he would take on as much as the radical left.

He recently said, for example, that Utah Sen. Mitt Romney should be eradicated from the Republican Party after he supported Bidens Supreme Court justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The senate hopeful has been a loud proponent of cryptocurrencies (as Ohio treasurer, he allowed taxpayers to pay their taxes in Bitcoin) and backed efforts to eliminate critical race theory from school curriculums.

A few GOP congress members have thrown their support behind Mandel, the most prominent endorsement coming from Cruz. North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn, Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Wyoming Sen.Cynthia Lummis are backing Mandel.

They join Trumps former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Colorado attorney Jenna Ellis, who led Trumps legal effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Mandel graduated with a bachelors degree in 2000 from Ohio State University, where he headed the student government. He received a law degree from Case Western Reserve University's School of Law in Clevelandin 2003.

Mandel has three children with his ex-wife Ilana Shafran. They divorced in 2020 after nearly 12 years of marriage. Shafran belongs to a prominent Ohio family that made their wealth in real estate. The political friction between Mandel and his former in-laws was well-publicized during his 2012 senate run. They penned a letter published in a local news outlet denouncing Mandel for his stance against same-sex marriage equality.

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Who is Josh Mandel? What to know about the ex-Ohio state treasurer in his third senate run - USA TODAY